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Saw it tonight (yay screening prints for work). Haven't read the book or seen the other versions of the story, so I can't really compare it to those. my feelings regarding the trailers were mostly confirmed in regards to them giving way to much away, although they did manage to leave some rather significant plot points out, thankfully.

Its more or less a 'fast zombie' movie. The whole idea that a measles virus somehow altered to cure cancer makes people either bleed out in a horrible way or basically become vampires a la 30 Days of Night is pretty damn scientifically suspect, but hey, what can you do. Smith does a pretty good job portraying a man driven mad by loneliness and survivors guilt, but for some sort of brilliant military scientist golden boy he does some stupid shit.

It was weird but somehow appropriate that the woman playing his wife also plays Allison on Eureka.

Sorry for this being disorganized, but its 3 in the morning and the caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol are fighting each other in my bloodstream.

seen it twice before...

once with Vincent Price, and once With Charleston Heston.

While the current version sounds bad, the Omega Man was a fucking disaster.

Stark wrote:While the current version sounds bad, the Omega Man was a fucking disaster.

Come on Stark, it was awesome. I laughed all the way through it.

Well, yeah, that's kinda my point. Not to hijack, but they took a cool psychological short story and made it an excuse for Heston to say 'rar guns'. He even had a squad of helpers, thus killing the central premise of the story!

Stark wrote:Well, yeah, that's kinda my point. Not to hijack, but they took a cool psychological short story and made it an excuse for Heston to say 'rar guns'. He even had a squad of helpers, thus killing the central premise of the story!

I'm pretty sure the Omega Man was meant to be somewhat tongue in cheek, unlike some of Heston's other 70's stinkers that were meant to be serious films (Airport 1975, Earthquake, Skyjacked).

Wow, really? I only saw it relatively recently, so I've no idea what it's original tone was supposed to be. Just the guys in the makeup with the robes and shit *does* suggest camp, though.

The capper is when Heston gets to be Christ at the end of the movie.

I'll take the original with Vincent Price any day of the week.

Aw hell no.

Did the shit just get real?

Patrick Degan wrote:The capper is when Heston gets to be Christ at the end of the movie.

I'll take the original with Vincent Price any day of the week.

like I said I've seen both "The last man on Earth" and "Omega Man" and highly perfer "The Last Man on Earth"

Is is better than "Last Man on Earth"? After the disaster that was Golden Compass, I'd like to avoid disappointment for my next cinema trip?

Its okay. It sort of follows the "Omega Man" plot. The film starts downhill once the other human shows up, and the last couple of minutes are painful.

The first half of the film is great though. Will Smith living in deserted NYC, hunting, and slowly going crazy from being alone (a lot of people laughed at his crazy moments, but I thought they were well done.)

Smith is a good actor too, despite most people's opinions, and his shear fear upon encountering the vampires was great. Also his moments with his dog were very well acting both the funny and the sad ones.

Also, this is verbally unstated by I liked that an intelligent vampire was starting to mimic him.

I have high hopes for it, though I probably won't see it. I really enjoyed Smith's performance in I, Robot.

After watching the trailer all I can say is are those vampires or zombies ? This movie must have destroyed whatever little reputation the Vampires had left after being turned into emo punks from their origins as one of the most fearsome things a man could encounter at night.

They're like screaming '28 Days Later' type monsters, but creepier and slightly smarter.

Sarevok wrote:After watching the trailer all I can say is are those vampires or zombies ? This movie must have destroyed whatever little reputation the Vampires had left after being turned into emo punks from their origins as one of the most fearsome things a man could encounter at night.

Yeah, I bet the Vampire Appreciation Society will sue.

And a low-end vampire is a lot less dangerous than an angry hippo.

I got fucking twitchy after watching it. I kept expecting some crazy shit to come out from around the corner after. The lions came out in a pretty scary fashion, and then you can feel Will Smith trying to calm down after because your'e trying to calm down after. The movie does this a couple more times and it doesn't get any more expected.

I thought I'd feel something more when they cut the bridges, but I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw his wife's chopper about to get hit (the sudden scene cut probably helped with that).

To be honest, I expected it to be an action film, like Die Hard 4 but with less people in the way. I wasn't expecting a semi-horror film like we got. My friend was happy we saw it, but kind of mad that we were mis-led (although sometimes fucking with people's expectations is a good thing).

It's marketed as an action movie? Oh dear.

Saw it last night. I liked the first two thirds, but as soon as the woman and kid showed up, the movie went completely to hell. Will Smith's performance is great; he really nails the horrible loneliness of his character. It's not the same as the book, I know, but it's still bleak and compelling, especially when he chats up mannequins he's posed as if they're real.

I knew there was no way a studio would okay a Will Smith movie with the novel's original ending intact, but I was hoping for some sort of bleak compromise. Something that would justify the title, something epic and apocalyptic, something that justified the time spent on the movie. I suppose I'm just naive like that, but I was hoping. Of course, I was let down, and they spring a maudlin, sappy ending onto the whole thing, an ending that makes NO sense based on what's been revealed before. And the mutants look HORRIBLY unreal; they took me right out of the movie. They looked like unfinished CGI (which they likely were), and they were SO ferocious that they were almost cartoonish.

Stark wrote:It's marketed as an action movie? Oh dear.

No, I actually didn't see any of the marketing for it. I saw the trailers, but the most I got out of them was "Sweet, they blew up the bridges!" which led me to believe there would be more explosions in store. Like, who would show the only explosions in the whole movie in the trailer? Other than his last line of defence, of course.

So no, the most I learned of it before hand was from you and the others in the chat. I BLAME YOU STARK!

Cooler King, yeah, the mannequin scenes were pretty well done by Smith. I got a bit freaked out when Fred was standing in front of Grand Central though. I swear I saw his head moving

I saw this movie as well and I also enjoyed it. Probably my biggest complaint is that all of the "vampires" looked the same, like Gollum from LotR. This is another instance of the studio using CG when it is not needed. The second biggest is that I must agree with many others here and say that when the female and kid arrived, the movie started heading down hill.

Smith did really shine in this movie I thought. He did a good job of slowly going crazy. The scene where he is looking for the dog in the dark and we get on of our first glimpses of the monster vampires, circled around something. Truly a creepy scene.

Phantasee wrote:I got fucking twitchy after watching it. I kept expecting some crazy shit to come out from around the corner after. The lions came out in a pretty scary fashion, and then you can feel Will Smith trying to calm down after because your'e trying to calm down after. The movie does this a couple more times and it doesn't get any more expected.

What I thought was interesting about that scene was that it clearly looked like he was debating in his head whether or not it was worth shooting the lions for the deer carcass or not. I almost got the feeling that he decided not to shoot them because they were a family.

To be honest, I expected it to be an action film, like Die Hard 4 but with less people in the way. I wasn't expecting a semi-horror film like we got. My friend was happy we saw it, but kind of mad that we were mis-led (although sometimes fucking with people's expectations is a good thing).

I was pleasantly surprised about how little it was action oriented. They didn't make him Rambo, but a desperate person with a gun against some really terrible enemies.


In general:
On the movie, on the whole I really liked the movie, even though having read the book previously naturally color my expectations somehow, thinking that the woman was going to turn out to be one of the partially infected vampires which didn't actually turn up in the movie.

It was pretty interesting from a psychological standpoint, though I think they saned him up a little too quickly after meeting Anna and Ethan, particularly considering he had been alone with his dog for the last three years after the death of his family, and then had to kill his dog after she because infected. On his birthday.

There were some moments I found darkly humorous as well. It is in a very black way funny when he encountered the dummy the vampires laid out to trap him on the street and I thought. "OK, you are the last man on Earth and you discover someone else is out there too... and that someone is clearly screwing with you."

One thing I didn't like was the way it ended. I know they were trying to justify the title of "I Am Legend" and they couldn't do it in the same way the book did it (IE, the Neville was the last monster), but still, come on. That was a bit of a stretch. I also kind of would have liked the Vermont colony to not have been there, that it was something that Anna was using to keep herself sane in the same was Neville was holding on to the hopes that staying in New York and trying to cure the virus and "stop this thing".

And the CGI vampires were goofy yeah. Come the fuck on, movie guys, don't tell me that "28 Days Later" kicked your ass on the Infected Human front when they had a tiny fraction of your budget. There is no excuse for that. Get a bunch of extras and use good old fashioned make up and appliances. You'll make more convincing, scarier monsters, mostly because such monsters you could BELIEVE used to be people. I couldn't really believe that the Vampires in "I Am Legend" used to be people like everyone else.

I liked the movie up until the woman and the kid showed up. In fact, so did most of the theater: there seemed to be palpable hostility in the audience when they were introduced.

It seems to me almost as if the end of this movie got tacked on. It would have been far better for Smith's character to go on a revenge-motivated, ill-advised killing spree only to find out that the infected saw him as the monster, as was only hinted at in the film. It would have been closer to the original story and far better than introducing a babbling Jesus freak like they did. I almost wonder if some dumbass forced the latter third on the writer.

Smith himself and the dog put on stellar performances and you feel for both characters. The dog's death is a very strong point in the film.

Cooler King, yeah, the mannequin scenes were pretty well done by Smith. I got a bit freaked out when Fred was standing in front of Grand Central though. I swear I saw his head moving

It does move, which is part of why Smith's character freaks the fuck out (the other part being that the mannequin was where it was at all). It seemed to be another hint at his growing insanity; he even screams at "Fred," asking him if he's real.

Tanasinn wrote:

Cooler King, yeah, the mannequin scenes were pretty well done by Smith. I got a bit freaked out when Fred was standing in front of Grand Central though. I swear I saw his head moving

It does move, which is part of why Smith's character freaks the fuck out (the other part being that the mannequin was where it was at all). It seemed to be another hint at his growing insanity; he even screams at "Fred," asking him if he's real.

Holy fuck, you have no idea how freaked out I got when I read that. Fuck, I'm still a little twitchy. I even noted the time for sunset when I was checking the weather on the TV today...

As an aside, what were the vampires doing in that circle in the building, because standing there and bobbing really creeped me the fuck out.

(My friend's theory is that they were slow jamming to some grunge.)